Phase One releases Capture One Pro v7

Phase One has announced Capture One Pro 7, the latest version of its image processing and workflow tool. The latest version is based around an entirely new image processing engine and gains digital asset management tools, developed from the company's experience with its Media Pro software. The software's tethered shooting option now gains live view for some DSLR models. The software will cost $299/€229 with significant discounts for upgraders from previous versions.

Press Release:

Phase One Releases Capture One Pro 7

New Processing Engine Drives an Image Quality Revolution

COPENHAGEN, October 25, 2012 — Phase One, the world’s leader in open-platform, high-end camera systems and solutions, today released Capture One Pro 7. Capture One Pro is the advanced digital imaging software for professional photographers who require superior image quality, maximum workflow efficiency and the flexibility to work the way they want to work.

Capture One Pro 7 is a major release built on a new processing engine with new and advanced professional tools that dramatically boost out-of-the-box image quality, offering exquisite detail and color rendition. Powerful digital asset management functionality, derived from years of technical expertise built into the Media Pro catalog system, has been added to offer more options to select, search and organize image files. And the world’s most advanced tethering shooting solution now includes Live View support for selected DSLRs.

“Phase One engineers have unique advantages in developing image processing software: their high-end digital hardware expertise, their enduring passion for perfection and their collaboration with some of the world’s best photographers,” said Linda K. Poulsen,SoftwareMarketing Director, Phase One.

“Image quality is always our prime directive,” said Niels V. Knudsen, Vice President of Innovation and Application Development, Phase One’s popular ‘Image Quality Professor.’ “We are proud to introduce what we believe is the world’s best professional imaging software, and we wish to thank photographers around the globe for inspiring us to meet their needs for high quality images with a natural look and feel.”

Noise Reduction - Before

Noise Reduction - After (Roscoe)

A Revolution in Image Quality Advancements in the Capture One raw processing engine yield vastly more accurate rendition of details and colors. While medium format camera systems with Capture One Pro achieve the highest-level results, DSLR users will see stellar performance from their cameras too. A highly advanced noise reduction algorithm has been added that gives stunning performance at even high ISO levels. Precision adjustment tools offer greatly enhanced dynamic range for astonishing details in both shadows and highlights, reveal fine details and structure, reduce the effect of haze and give images a more three-dimensional look and add local contrast and saturation to images for extra punch. The new OpenCL implementation yields faster browsing and higher-speed image processing.

Powerful Digital Asset ManagementNext to the familiar and proven sessions approach, Capture One Pro users can now organize their image files via comprehensive and flexible catalogs. Incorporating powerful digital asset management features found in Media Pro, they can work with multiple catalogs at the same time; share catalogs with other users; switch between different catalogs without relaunching; easily tag images for later search and retrieval; and browse and adjust images when the original images files are offline.

Before

After (Kevin Raber)

Workflow Advances From capture to final output, Capture One Pro 7 has been optimized for efficiency. Capture One Pro’s support for instant tethered shooting is renowned for its ease (just plug in and shoot) with both medium format and high-end DSLR cameras. Now Live View is available for selected DSLRs aiding composition and critical focus.Capture One Pro 7 has a selection of default lens profiles that can be chosen to automatically correct any unwanted optical issues. Capture One Pro 7 speeds delivery of final image files to clients and colleagues in whatever format, size, or resolution they need.

Pricing and AvailabilityPhase One Capture One Pro 7 is available now for Mac OS X and Windows online at www.phaseone.com/store and from Phase One Partners. The price is 299 USD and 229 EUR. Owners of Capture One Pro 3/4/5/6 may upgrade for 99 USD and 69 EUR. Owners of Capture One Express may upgrade to Capture One Pro 7 for 249 USD and 199 EUR. For customers who have purchased Capture One Pro 6 since September 26, 2012, Phase One is offering a grace period, exempting them from the upgrade fee.

I was gonna try to see how Capture One handled high-ISO RAW images from my Olympus OM-D E-M5... installed it all, did the first import, and the first RAW image I clicked on... BANG, it crashed.I hope they get this sorted out. As a QA engineer, I find such lack of stability appalling, to say the least.

Major disappointment after upgrading to C1pro7 from 6. Everything run slower and lots of bugs. Crash often and tools take on strange behaviors.I have been using C1pro since v1, was very happy with c1pro6 until now. I have never encounter so many bugs from v1 to v6. I have tried beta version of other softwares and they were much more stable and bug free. I am going back to v6 until they come up with something useful and promising as they claimed on the ads.

Having similar problems with consistent crashing...! I love phase one products, have used them since their original scan backs and capture back for the Hassy. I have been using their software since "phase one ver 1" (original software) through capture one ver 7. The initial release is sure to have bugs, unfortunately this one has many. I have not used it for tethered work but download cards to folders created by CO-7 on non-os hd's. Folder size does not seem to be a variable whether 3 gigs or 32 gigs it crashes. Building previews takes anywhere from 15 to 45+ minutes along with several crashes or freezes. CO-6 it took 3-4 minutes. Processing out the files also takes much longer. Frustrating as I was waiting for Ver 7 with great anticipation. Hope 7.1 addresses these problems. Using an alternative software in the meantime.

Capture One Pro 7 works for me a couple of week now. Its running as fast and as stable as the former versions, it only crashed once when I cataloguing over 3TB of pictures on one internal-, and three internal drives.

As it crashed, a message came to life asking what I did at the moment things went wrong. The message was send to Phase One for diagnosis. Very well programming!

I start with engine 6 for standard. So I could make duplicates and compare pictures by ´developing´ the original with the version 6 engine and the duplicate with the 7 engine. I say, to my liking, the engine 7 makes really better pictures. I´m conviced, now I use standard the 7 engine.

I regret that my old 32bit computer still has to do with Capture One Pro 6. But then, its my spare.

bought CO7 few days after launch. Lesson learned, NEVER buy a newly launched software, CO7 is slow, running it on a 17" MacBook Pro with quad core and 16GB of RAM and a SSD drive. Improvement in some area over shadowed by the slow performance and poor stability. Whether I was shooting tethered or working on images, the software crashes. The tether shoot crash also mean some last image was lost. Restarting = wasted time. Been communicating with support to resolve issues. Word of advise, stay away from CO7 for a while more. CO6 still rocks ! I am going back to CO6, which means worked files are not backward compatible so will need to re-do all the work but at least I won't be as frustrated.

I bought Capture One Pro 7 now 11 days. Since we did not use it. It has all kinds of defects that make it unusable. At the moment I am in discussions with those in support to try to repair damage. Instead of working with this software can try to fix it. I am forced to work all the old version. This harm me

Has anyone heard if an Express version of this is forthcoming or not, or has that now been dropped? From memory then the Pro and Express versions were pretty much simultaneously released when versions 5 and 6 came to market, so its notable that only a Pro version has come to market.

I've been using it since about v3.7, generally its been very good bar the odd bug in a fresh update. I don't think I could justify the outlay for Pro if i'm honest, especially when the headline pricing quietly omits the eyewatering 25% VAT that gets slapped on top.

"Incorporating powerful digital asset management features found in Media Pro…"Powerful it may be (Media Pro) but ***slow*** it is!I've been with that program since it was iViewMedia and what happened when Phase One eventually took over, was that image rendering became ridiculously slow – even for JPEGs!Still, with the latest Media Pro on my Early 2011 17" MB Pro with 16 GB RAM, I have to sit and twiddle my thumbs waiting for an image to finally render.Elements Organizer 11 and LR 4 both run rings around Media Pro.So, the fact that it's now included in C1 is, let's say, a very mixed blessing.

I have tested out Capture One 7 last night sharpness not as good as Capture One 6 but better though still, less jagging on diagonal shape. Much clean looking too. So I am unsure if Capture One 7 is worth it for me. I like sharper one though as it looks good. What I did in test was leave as default but turned off all noise reduction and leave sharpening on default. I compared to LR and all other software. I still like Capture one no doubt. Thats my preference.

Cheers Naththo.Perhaps the default sharpening is set to a lower value than C1 v6? C1 v6 has always had one of the the best demosaicing around, sometimes to the point where it was just too sharp. I wouldn't mind giving up a bit on that for the upgrades in speed and NR.It will probably still be my RAW developer of choice.

To make "...enhanced dynamic range for astonishing details..." I use to very simple and very powerful.... photoshop. Any, even photoshop3 can do that. See the sample I did in 3 minute. I didnt overdo this image but can do "overdo" easy, just to add more sat.More details in my bloghttp://www.traveltonz.co.nz/drama-in-the-sky/

C1 support replied it was due to the limited amount of memory available to the applications in 32b environments. I can't believe this is the real reason. I have been running C1 6 on 1GB of RAM, yes it is slow but at least it works as a backup on my portable. If 7 has exploded that much, then something must be wrong ;-(

Capture One plus Nikon D800 = perfectI've been struggling with light room 4.2 for the last few weeks with D800 files in trying to find workarounds to make it more efficient. Just downloaded capture one imported the files and all is well, it is so much faster than light room I can't believe it. Testing seems to indicate output files are at least as good if not better than light room and the capture utility works like a charm with the D800. After its 60 days it should be a no-brainer to do the upgrade from version 3.5 that I started with. I've tried all the versions of capture one till now and this is the only one that really is great.

Capture One, despite being one of the best workflow software I ever used, sucks. At every update of a few new cameras, they sell you an expensive update. The latest cameras that just came out are not contained, buy the soft now and in 3 month you buy another expensive update to see you camera raw file being opened in it. PS sucks with their limited updates of ACR and they force you to buy a new version and a new computer at every version when they stop supporting or updating the software. Latest version of ACR does not work in PS CR5, you have to get version 6 and here the memory overflow is that big, you have to change to the highest level in computer technology to be able to use it.

If I consider the' price paid for any of those software, I expect at least to be able to get updates a year after the new version comes out. PS sucks in this matter and C1 is a real mess, a money sucking crap in my point of view.

1 - DR squeezing now on par with LR2 - noise smoothing much better than version before3 - better demoisacing algorithm (its most likely version of AMaZE)4 - bit more detail squeezing thanks to clarity slide

Neutral

1 - noise smoothing not as good as LR or dedicated plugins2 - while using clarity slider does give certain bite, its not too selective and its very easily overdone, maybe more smaller steps and bit of masking would help, also thanks to contrast being LAB, it does have effect on colors

Negative

1 - while AMaZE is nice demoisacing algorithm it can and does give demoisacing errors (dont look at pic at 200% view.. or sometimes even 100%)2 - things on white background can have black outlines (reason unknown, maybe bit of clarity is always applied)

Otherwise not much to complain about. Its bit unstable if you have ATi graphic card and OpenCL acceleration enabled (its in options, easy to disable). Maybe bit unstable just on itself. Only 64 bit version .. well not exactly downside but ppl for backward compatibility still are using 32 bit systems (some printers, scanners etc. dont have 64bit drivers).

Advantages are same as they were before. Nice colors, quite fast processing. How good are these colors depends bit on camera used. Some of their profiles are great, some bit less, but then only really color accurate profile is usually one that you create yourself for your camera, if you know how.

I would say its quite worth its price. Tho for demoisacing I would prefer being able to switch between CP6 and CP7 at will.

@Mescalamba, what I find is that ATI video card is MUCH better colours and sharpness output than Geforce for reading text and editing photos even has optional EDID white balance grab from monitor so it render the WB correctly. Geforce do not have it and lack sharpness, text bit too soft to read on high resolution screen, but better in gaming more than just photo editing. I have no problem with ATI 6850 at all. I would not switch back to Geforce if they don't improve sharpness and other among things like WB feature in it. Without EDID white balance option it make monitor calibration a lot more difficult to pick out the right WB especially colorvision. EDID white balance option selected my screen WB becomes more neutral and better, less green tinge and save the calibration time in colorvision also.

If you use digital cables (as everyone has for about a decade), the graphics card does not have an influence on sharpness or colour (in 2D). With the color profiles I agree, ATI does a great service to customers offering that possibility.

same, enjoying it but the cataloging doesnt come close to LR4 which is as important to me as getting the most detail out of an image. Maybe im missing something but importing all my photos into a C1 catalogue doesnt keep the folder structure on the drive so i end up with a flat folder tree in the app which is just a mess.

if im importing 10,000 photos it should be able to read the directory structure and build everything for me. Manually adding albums etc for each folder will take me a month. Once its done i guess its done, but its a pain in the bum that shouldnt be there.

You have the option to leave your images in their current folder structure on your hard drive and just populate the catalogue with references to these original images. All folder structures are recorded and available from within Capture One, no extra work required.

You also have the option to store the images inside the catalogue. I have not explored this option yet.

Give PhotoNinja a try. The best demosaicing I know (there are two algorithms included, but even the faster one gives very good results), very very good highlight recovery, great colors, good noise reduction, good ca detection and auto-correction, good distortion correction. Big BUT: no batch queue yet (should arrive in a few weeks according to the developers). Small but (for me): no DAM features.

It has, but there aren't any profiles yet. That said, it is very easy to create an own distortion- and vignetting correction that is applied automatically to pictures shot with the respective lens at the respective aperture and focal length (never seen this better implemented anywhere!). And CAs can be autocorrected.

Agree on Photo Ninja, I switched now from C1 6.2 (as a long time C1 fanboy) to PN. No batch processing, no selective tool like LR or layers like C1, but it is version 1.02 now and support said this is on the to do list already. Highly recommended.

In the exposure tab try the new clarity TAB: method : punch; clarity 25 and structure 25 and your sharp images will have outstanding sharpness and local contrast (don´t go much past these values)... ( I always felt CO have a little strange demosaic which renders small details in a digital non organic awya but with this new clarity tools I bet prints will look much better like a new megapixl increase (I tried it with sony a55)).

It has increased dynamic range but with a good tone curve that contrast isn´t flat...

It renders images in a fast way and is sharp in comparisons and transitions between 2 images.

Noise reduction is good but with cameras with low dynamic range at high iso like 1600 (my olympus e-pl1) it isn´t as good as lightroom 4 (it seems to have a problem with shadows) but with my sisters Sony A55 which has better shadow noise (with less courser grain) it renders iso 3200 very good since it eliminates better the noise in midtones than LR4.

What I liked about Capture one is sharpness and noise reduction is much better than LR for my Canon camera. And even with Capture One it open up more dynamic range in default setting without touching anything compare to DPP the dynamic range in standard setting at default is very poor. Capture One allowed me to open up many times more stops of DR than the DPP. Thats the best part I have ever seen. Plus the colours were nearly spot on not as close as DPP but DPP is not my taste due to sharpness is no good, poor dynamic range and too contrasty. Well Done for making the fantastic software to Capture one! Thumbs up. :)

Agreed. I can't talk about DPP but put in simple words ... CaptureOne can "see" subtle color tonalities and dinamic range that adobe acr and LR are blind to. And this shows right away, before doing any adjustments.

Most of my landscape photos look like the "before" picture of the rocks, or worse. Maybe a few bucks worth of software do more good than a lot more sunk into filters and lenses! Oh, but then there is the question of how many hours to spend doctoring and nursing a bad picture that inspire a mere "errrr," into a merely decent one that inspires an "hmmm," but not yet an "aahh," and still far from an "ooooh!" And, even then, the expert will look at the result, grimace, and say, "Over-processed."

With my 5d mk II what I find wrong with C1 is COLOR, fill light and highlight recovery. Everything other is the best on the market. Color though, is the worst on market (specifically for my camera, don't know about other cameras). Yellows are off, greens are off...

Highlight and shadow control on C1 6 was weak compared to LR and clarity was too heavy handed. NR was also not in LR's class. Everything else was very good. I hope 7 improves on those tools and NR is much better as it would be very nice package.

Capture One 6 produces the best results of any conversion software in my inventory, including LR. From initial viewing of the RAW file to stage-by-stage processing and output, images have better color, more detail, superior sharpness, tonality and clarity overall. The controls are super-accurate and work in subtle rather than aggressive ways, ie fine-tuning is a major advantage of Capture One. This is software for the perfectionist, no doubt about that! Capture One works with JPEGs and TIFFs in the same ways it works with RAW. It also provides a faster workflow as well as very valuable adjustment controls at the output stage. I've hardly touched my other conversion software since loading Capture One. No need to.

+1 Veroman. Have Capture One P6, LR4 and tested CNX2 too; the best IQ for my D800E files was with the Capture One with a very little or no effort at all. (I am not using the Lightroom anymore).. Let's see what this upgrade would bring on top of the P6.

Same can be said here ... IMO most of those who prefer LR to C1 simply because they are used to LR.

I've been using C1 since the introduction with the original 1Ds and in my eyes, they simply have NO competition to date - none, nada - in terms of the best results I can achieve by using anything tool.

I find C1 much superior than any other software as a raw processor for all the good reasons stated above. I still use LR for cataloguing and exporting, web publishing.LR does an excellent job for 90% of my images, but that special 10% definitively deserve the high quality and gentle processing offered by C1. Download the trial, process your best image starting from scratch, and see for yourself.One note though, both have tools that allow to do things the other one don't. I find they're a complement of each other.

color noise reduction is better than LR, noise reduction is as good or better and the end result holds up to sharpening much better than in LR where a fabric-like pattern develops under heavy sharpening.

When a lens can be identified in the camera metadata and when the lens is in the catalog of profiled lenses then the correction can be applied automatically.

Their pricing seems out of line with the current market. Adobe recognised the changes when they reduced their price for LR4 by about 50%.

As most pros seem to use either LR or Aperture Phase One are unlikely to attract many new customers unless their products performance is significantly better than the Adobe or Apple product. The reviews will reveal all!

I think what Doug is trying to say is if you called randomly 20 places you would find that they are using Capture one.This doesn't surprise me and He has worked in a lot of fields so does know something.Capture one was the only thing for Phase, Maya and leaf backs, as now all the same company. YES Leaf had its own software, but people said not as good. Hassy has its own software, but also mixed feelings on it.Capture One in my test was the best for Olympus cameras. Which other 43rds users discovered and are using it.But Adobe DNG still has dominance. I am hoping for linear DNG support in Capture one in the future. But most likely will not happen.

Most pros use LR or Aperture? I don't have figures on that, but I did meet a very successful commercial photographer at Samy's in Los Angeles. He told me that most of the professional retouchers that he knows use Capture One. Adobe has massive size and marketing power. No one can match them in that regard, and I have no doubt that they pay a great many pros to hype their products. Adobe does have good software, but it is not always the best.

The LR preference is mostly among high-throughput photographers (weddings, events, and so on). The straight-through workflow with Creative Suite (particularly PS) makes a big difference when your output is in hundreds of images range (and your input could easily be in the thousands) for a job. The plugin ecosystem doesn't hurt either. That's not an indication of ultimate quality, but ultimate utility for the job at hand.

The same folks that would pay three times the cost for the f/1.2 or f/1.4 version of a lens than an f/1.8 version. Or that buy digital backs. Some people will pay for quality, speed, features, and workflow. Others will buy Lightroom because it's $200 less and then spend hundreds of hours sitting in front of software that is less professional.

Given that raw processing is now nearly half the time a photographer spends with his images (obviously depends on what kind of photographer, sometimes it's less than half, sometimes far more) I'd say $279 is the best value any photographer who cares about quality and workflow will find.

You can try it for 60 days. During that period you may receve a discount offer from Capture One of about 50%.I've been using C1 for developing RAW files from my Olympus XZ-1. I tried several other softwares including Lightroom 4 but C1 gives much better image quality (for me) and is the fastest software as well.

I paid it, and I'd pay it again if I had to. What's the point of spending good money on camera bodies and lenses, then using inferior software to adjust the images? Capture One makes the investment in gear all the more worthwhile. One thing that amazed me about Capture One is how it rendered images shot with my older cameras ... like my Canon 10D. I didn't realize the 10D was THAT good until I re-reviewed its files using C1.

When CO v4 was out you got 2 free upgrades. So if you bought V4 you would now have to buy V7. But if you bought v5 or v6 this should be free!Adobe does not do that!I say this as I own Lightroom 3 and not capture one. But now all the features I need are there and might go for it.

Either you have a really old computer (or old un-updated OS) or you are simply experiencing an installation bug of some sort. Have you started a support case at phaseone.com to get support or contacted the dealer from whom you purchased it, or are you just banging your head against the wall hoping the pain will stop?

When copying the app into the apps folder during installation a pop up usually asks you wether to replace the old file or keep both. Have you looked in your trash folder to see if the v6 app is still there ? If so, rename it and move it back and you might be good to go until this problem is solved.

Where can we download the trial? im waiting to see if m43 cameras have auto-distortion correction like lightroom and if capture one has nailed noise reduction since it has much better colors than lightroom (better WB interpretation) and its faster

Starting October 1st, Getty Images will no longer accept images in which the models have been Photoshopped to "look thinner or larger." The change was made due to a French law that requires disclosure of such images.

A court ruling our of Newton, Massachusetts has set an important legal precedent for drone pilots: federal drone laws will now trump local drone regulations in situations where the two are in conflict.

macOS High Sierra came out today, but if you use a Wacom tablet you need to wait a few weeks before you upgrade. According to Wacom, they won't have a compatible driver ready for you until "late October."

Vitec, the company that owns popular accessory maker Manfrotto, has just acquired JOBY and Lowepro for a cool $10.3 million in cash. The acquisition adds JOBY and Lowepro to Vitec's already sizable collection of camera gear brands.

A veteran photojournalist, Rick Wilking secured a spot in the path of totality for the August solar eclipse. While things didn't quite pan out as predicted, an unexpected subject in the sky and a quick reaction made for a once-in-a-lifetime shot.